Goodguys Del Mar Nationals - Season Opener Buy Me

Spring is in the air at the annual Goodguys Del Mar Nationals

The weather starts getting drier, the temps creep up, but it’s not really spring until a Goodguys event kicks off the car show season in Southern California. Yep, it’s that time of the year again, and even though SoCal winters don’t involve snow blowers or ice scrapers, we still get excited about spring just like the rest of the country.

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This year, Goodguys switched things up a bit by passing on the Costa Mesa event and adding a second Del Mar show later in the season. This seemed to ratchet up the attendance as evidenced by the thousands of cars strewn about the scenic seaside fairgrounds. There was a huge vendor area, a parts corral, beautiful cars, ugly food, and our favorite: the petite, yet always exciting autocross.

With the Costa Mesa event gone, the annual Editor’s Shootout Autocross was moved south. And this year they decided to give editors who can’t build fast cars a chance by not allowing personal cars and mandating that each editor make a lap in a donated Ford, Mopar, and Chevy. Clutches were smoked, parts busted, and several cars sidelined, but in the end Camaro Performers magazine staffer, Mary Pozzi, took the prize, giving us our fourth straight win.

On the car show side, Camaros were well represented with F-bodies taking top honors in several categories.

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Goodguys Del Mar Nationals - Season Opener Buy Me

Paul Alderman ran his Detroit Speed-built ’70 Camaro hard on the autocross, and his car was also picked as a contender for Muscle Machine of the Year. LS power, killer suspension, and Forgeline wheels. What’s not to love?

Matt Bezkvovny of San Louis Obispo, California, caught the Camaro bug after getting some autocross rides from our own Mary Pozzi. Since then, he picked up this ’70 and has been steadily adding parts and making it faster. So far, he’s dropped in a 383 stroker backed up by a Tremec TKO-600 trans and suspension widgets to help it handle better.

The Goodguys

Goodguys rule, for the Del Mar show is ‘72 or older, so there weren’t many modern Camaros on hand. We found this new Synergy Edition lurking over in the GM Performance Parts trailer. Look for these to start popping up at Chevy dealers as they’re released this summer.

Want to rock some IROCs? Well, this show had you covered with their swap meet section. Remember back when 16-inch wheels were considered big?

The only other new car we saw at this event was the fifth-gen test mule owned by Hotchkis Performance. Wearing BBS wheels wrapped in Nitto NT05 rubber, this SS is running their TVS suspension package. Too bad it wasn’t allowed on the autocross.

Del Mar is one of the Goodguys shows that offers free autocrossing. Here, the guys from Newman Car Creations fling their beater ’68 through the course. Look close under the back and you’ll notice it’s running a 'Vette IRS system. Sweet!

Paul Alderman ran his Detroit Speed-built ’70 Camaro hard on the autocross, and his car was also picked as a contender for Muscle Machine of the Year. LS power, killer suspension, and Forgeline wheels. What’s not to love?

Is it us, or were there a lot of orange cars at this event? This one belongs to Camaro Performers magazine columnist Mary Pozzi. This lightweight bomber is running every carbon-fiber part possible from Anvil Auto. It also features Forgeline rollers, Hotchkis suspension, and the old 402 LS2 stroker from our Bad Penny project car. This second-gen should be ready to hit the road once they figure out where to safely mount the swear jar.

If you have the March ’11 issue of Camaro Performers, you’ll see Mike Binkle’s ’69 drop top featured in our F-Body Garage department. The guys over at Best Of Show Coach Works finished the car, and it debuted at this event where it took home the “Best Ride on BFGs” award. It's powered by a 383 and relies on a Global West suspension to help in the handling department. Congrats to Mike for the first of what we bet will be many awards.

Another show-winning Camaro was Bruce Stedman’s ’68, which picked up the

This ’67 had that cool sleeper vibe going. Flat hood, vinyl top, and all the chrome trim gave it a low-key look. Since ’92 the Camaro had 4,000 miles put on the odometer and it showed. Donald was asking $25k for this numbers-matching ride, and given how clean it was, we bet he’ll get close to that.

CFR Performance (Ontario, California) brought out their company’s ’72 shop car for some fun at the autocross. Global West suspension parts, along with QA1 shocks, help the Camaro wiggle through the cones, and a 400-inch small-block provides plenty of power.

The event also had a ton of vendors to check out. Anvil Auto is one that always has us drooling over their new carbon fiber wares. We’re really digging their ’69 deep front wheel tubs (soon to be offered for the ’67-68s) and the new ’67-68 lower front valance.

We thought this ’68 was one of the better deals at the show. The guy was asking $17k, which certainly isn’t cheap, but the car was very clean had better-than-average paint, original sheet metal, and a freshly rebuilt 327. Fix the stance and you’re ready to roll.

Would you let this motley group of editors drive your car? Well, lucky for us, Ridetech (Ford), Hotchkis (Mopar), and Optima (Chevy) were crazy enough to hand us the keys. Was there carnage? Let’s just say that Detroit Speed Inc. was nice enough to lend their Nova when the Camaro’s clutch was violated and then they lent their ’70 Camaro when Rupp snapped the Nova’s sway bar bolt (he’s developing a habit of breaking front sway bars). In the end, Camaro Performers columnist Mary Pozzi took the win. We would call it a Camaro Performers four-peat, but then we would have to send a royalty check to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Don’t have big bucks for a first-gen Camaro, or even an early second-gen? You might consider something like this ’81 Z28 350 small-block, four-speed manual trans; while the paint was beat to hell, at least the body was in solid shape. We’re pretty sure the $4,000 asking price was negotiable.

The 2009 Goodguys Car Show started the season with a two car shows in sunny Southern California and we took one for the team covering the autocross action featured by Air Ride Technologies Street Challenge Autocross in Costa Mesa and Del Mar. - Camaro Performers Magazine » Read More

We had a feeling Craig Stewart had the look versus power equation completely figured out, when we me him at the Goodguys Nationals, but a few weeks later we have come to find that his 1964 Chevy Chevelle Malibu was sporting a 396 big block complemented by several performance parts. - Super Chevy Magazine » Read More